NaMo is choosing his Cabinet – wants ten years to change India

Narendra Modi has five years till the next general election to show that he can get India moving but NaMo, as the Indian media call him, has said over the weekend that he needs ten years to transform the country – which he cloud well get if progress goes relatively well in the first period.

He will be elected parliamentary leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party today and will then meet President Pranab Mukherjee to stake his irrefutable claim to form India’s new government. He will be sworn in on Monday when senior cabinet appointments will probably be announced.

The prospect of ten-years of Modi rule strikes fear among many people who are afraid that, alongside building up economic growth and development, that would give him and his supporters time to entrench Hindu nationalist policies in various ways, destroying India’s traditional secular base that caters for minorities such as Muslims and Christians.

Modi has tried to deal with that fear by making statements about inclusiveness. “To run the country we need to take everyone with us, all together and I seek your blessings to succeed in this endeavour,” he said at one of his massive triumphal celebration rallies. “Brothers, sisters, you have faith in me and I have faith in you…. The people of this country have given their verdict. This verdict says we have to make the dreams of 1.25bn people come true. I must work hard,”

The key here, as I wrote last Friday, is that his huge majority means that he cannot just work for BJP interests but will have to make building the economy his primary aim. The BJP’s success is the result of massive support from voters – especially the young – who want India to get moving and who regard their elders’ fears of Hindu chauvinism and violence as something that can be put aside.

The BJP alone without its allies won 282 seats, ten more than the 272 needed for a simple majority in the Lok Sabha. This is the first time that a party has won a majority without needing a coalition since Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress victory in 1984.

It has been widely assumed that coalitions involving smaller and regional parties would be inevitable in India for years to come because Congress has been losing its national role for over 20 years and the BJP did not have any chance of building countrywide appeal. Modi has reversed that trend and has made the BJP a party with national reach for the first time. In north India, he has notably defeated caste-based parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and has spread the BJP’s appeal in the south

Modi consults on his Cabinet

While the Congress Party’s top working committee was yesterday shielding Sonia and Rahul Gandhi from blame for its devastating defeat, and rejected their notional offers of resignation, Modi was meeting his top leaders and allies to try to work out who to appoint to his cabinet.

He is expected to try to rationalise the functioning of government by setting up two new umbrella ministries for energy and infrastructure that would take in smaller currently unco-ordinated ministries. This may also be done in other areas. This might take sometime to organise, and there are suggestions that only a small cabinet will be announced first.

He has a difficult job balancing various interests. Ideally he would like to appoint ministers who can deliver on his promises to ramp up the economy, revive investment, and speed up infrastructure construction. Top bureaucrats responding to the leadership of Modi’s Prime Minister’s Office can do some of that work, but effective ministers are also important.

He has to take into account the ambitions of the right wing of the Sangh Parivar, the umbrella organisation for which the BJP is the political arm. Here the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which Modi has belonged to since he was a teenager, is the key organisation. It lays down doctrine and, having played a large part in the election campaign by providing thousands of volunteers, will expect to have a role in the government.

Arun Jaitley, a prominent politician and lawyer who has been the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha (upper house), is being widely tipped to be foreign minister, though till yesterday he was expected to be finance minister. He is close to Modi but his stock has fallen because, in an attempt to build a political base, he stood for election in the Punjab city of Amritsar and was heavily defeated by the Congress candidate, Capt Amarindar Singh, a former Punjab chief minister and member of the old Patiala maharajah family. Jaitley remains a Rajya Sabha member so can take a ministerial job despite the defeat.

Arun Shourie (above), a former campaigning newspaper editor who was disinvestment and telecoms minister in the last BJP government, has also been mentioned for the finance job – Mumbai’s businessmen have been saying he is likely to be the finance minister for several weeks. He is favoured by Modi. Other possibilities are the defence ministry, which needs a strong reformist cabinet minister, or commerce and industry.

Rajnath Singh, who has been instrumental in paving the way for Modi’s ascendancy since he became BJP president in January last year, could be a candidate for a top cabinet post though reports suggest that he will remain party president and maybe become home minister later. If he does become home minister, his earlier experience as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh would be useful because he has experience of how states work, which could help him persuade them to co-operate in security and other issues.

Sushma Swaraj, who has been leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, would have been sure to get a top post if she had not opposed Modi becoming the party’s prime ministerial candidate – a role she had hoped for herself. It will be a test of Modi’s willingness to embrace opponents as well as friends to see what job she gets.

Nitin Gadkari, a Maharashtra politician and businessman who was BJP president from 2010, is also in line for a key job, possibly on infrastructure, which he handled earlier in his home state. He resigned from the party president’s post in January 2013 after the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party made allegations of illicit deals concerning his Purti group of agricultural and power businesses.

Modi also needs to find a spot for Amit Shah (left), a tough political ally in Gujarat who managed the highly successful election campaign for him in Uttar Pradesh. He might become minister in the prime minister’s office so he could make sure Modi’s plans are implemented.

Finally Modi has somehow to accommodate L.K.Advani, the party’s top veteran leader, who had hoped to become prime minister even though he is 86. Also Murli Manohar Joshi, another veteran leader. One possibility mooted in the media is that Advani would become the speaker of the Lok Sabha.

One key post to watch will be whether an RSS activist is made the Human Resources Development Minister and thus be able to organise rewriting of textbooks and infiltration of university organisations. Some reports suggest Shushma Swaraj might be given this ministry.

These appointments are important because Modi needs to ensure that the quality and strength of his first cabinet, and the ministerial organisation, support his claim that he can cut through India’s problems and boost economic growth, and tackle other issues such as high inflation.

My new book IMPLOSION:India’s Tryst with Reality, is on sale in India and other South Asian bookshops. E-books and hard covers are on Amazon.in, .com, and .co.uk. For India delivery, also Flipkart http://bit.ly/1ghRWnA

Responses

It seems like the only known thing with Mr Modi is that there are surprises in store. No one really seems to know the man, so practically everything that’s said and written about him is essentially interpretation.

Let’s hold our collective breaths and see what surprises are in store!

By: Prashanth Yeri on May 21, 2014 at 9:54 pm

Modi is a strong and hard working politician.He never break people trust. He will work for 1.25 billion people of India.After a long time India got a real strong man who always have desire to be India at the top of the world becasue he believe India is like his mother.No need to fear good people but yes bad people must be fear either he is Hindu, Muslim or any religion.Now Good day has started.